Rep. Tom Cotton: Congress Must Be Willing to Shut Down the Government if Obama Won’t Budge on the Debt Ceiling

“Jay Carney has said, Congressman, over and over and over [President Obama] will not compromise on this issue. So, if Republicans don’t get what they want, and we have a president digging in his heels, are you prepared to shut down the government?” host Andrea Tantaros asked.

“I think we have to be,” Rep. Cotton replied. “We have to be willing to draw the line and say that we have a debt crisis in this country that’s caused by two simple facts: We spend too much, and we have too little growth. We have to adopt pro-growth policies and we have to reduce the explosive deficit spending under the Obama administration to get the economy growing again to confront this debt crisis.”

Tantaros compared the current debt crisis to the tractor-chicken scene in the movie Footloose, urging the Republicans not to “blink this time.” Jason Mattera noted that Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler is floating the idea of having the U.S. Treasury get around the debt ceiling by minting a $1 trillion coin to pay down the debt.

Cotton laughed at the idea, before suggesting that lower taxes and less government would do more to solve our fiscal crisis than just printing more money would. Cotton also said that the next spending fight will play out differently and Republicans will get meaningful spending cuts from the Obama administration because everyone’s taxes are not set to go up automatically as they were during the year-end fight. He also noted that despite Obama’s protestations over negotiating on the debt ceiling, he voted against it when he was a senator.

Rep. Tom Cotton is a freshman congressman, described as a member of the “Hell No!” caucus when it comes to increasing government spending. A Harvard graduate, he served in the U.S. Army in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Andrea Tantaros Show with Jason Mattera is produced by the Fox and Rice Experience.

Bryan Preston has been a leading conservative blogger and opinionator since founding his first blog in 2001. Bryan is a military veteran, worked for NASA, was a founding blogger and producer at Hot Air, was producer of the Laura Ingraham Show and, most recently before joining PJM, was Communications Director of the Republican Party of Texas.

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17 Comments, 14 Threads

1.
scotth

Here, here! A shutdown is the best leverage available. The children have abused the credit card. Take it away.

No budget in 4 years and an increase in the spending/borrowing cap, what could go wrong? No to spending/borrowing increases and yes to budget. Of what is the new coin to be made? Platinum won’t do, nor will gold. Maybe it is phonyium.

If they’re going to do it, they need to understand what they’re getting in to and make sure the folks back in their districts are being communicated with directly and not left to rely on the MSM version of events.

Clinton basically used the public employee union tactic of the virtual strike. The Administration went on a complicit media and told the People that the sky was falling and Congressional Republicans did a lousy job of responding to Clinton’s catastrophizing the situation. This time the MSM won’t just be complicit, it will be a co-conspirator. I think the key for Republicans is to rely on their district, state, and regional media to communicate with their own constituents and simply ignore the MSM other than to jab at them some.

Obama isn’t Clinton and he may shut down some things that really do hurt people. Not much of what the federal government does directly effects people, at least not immediately. Probably the only feds that people see consistently and depend on are air traffic controllers, TSA, and ICE/Customs. While there is probably an automated system that would do it, he could say the shutdown made him unable to send out SS checks or meet federal payroll, including military payroll. It would be a lie, but a lie is better than the truth and if he goes there, the Republicans better have their message tuned up. Federal employees are like all other public employees, they’re at most a paycheck away from flat broke because since they have secure retirements, they have little if any other savings. Many would have accrued leave, but if they’re furloughed, they might not be able to access the leave and I’m sure there is not actual funding for employee leave; it just comes out of current year budgets and with no budget, there’s nothing to pay the leave. Medicare/Medicaid are run through the states and the states usually draw down as much as they can as early in the budget cycle as they can, so both those programs and most of the other “welfare” programs will be able to operate for quite some time before a federal shutdown would be felt. On the other hand, some of the Blue state governors or doughnut city mayors could unleash all Hell by cutting off benefits and if, as many suspect, the Obamunists are looking to try their hand with martial law, that would be the way to get it. The nightmare is a majority black, Democrat controlled city in a Red state. There is civil unrest because of the government shutdown, a Republican governor uses state law enforcement or state active duty National Guard to attempt to restore order, the Democrat mayor asks for federal help because of the brutal repression being carried out by the evil Republican Governor – and then all Hell begins.

I agree with you entirely on what the Obamunist’s strategy would be. Back when I lived in Washington state, whenever the Democrats didn’t get the tax increases they wanted the governor would cut funding to schools, fire departments, police departments, and other such things first. They’d never scale back on that new multi-million dollar complex they were building to house the homeless, or trim any of the multitude of state health programs even a little, no they went after the things that would hurt the voters the most first. The first 10% that we force them to cut from the budget will come out of the services most critical to everyday life, count on it. They would gladly let fires rage and anarchy reign before trimming one cent off of the various “Obamaphone” vote buying programs. This is what we must be ready to combat, we need someone who can get up there and bluntly ask why they’ve chosen to shut down something vital to most Americans instead of some horribly expensive Democratic special interest program.

Actually, Mr. Cotton, what congress needs to do, is quit appropriating funds beyond what can actually be payed for! For some of congress to cast blame upon the Executive Branch for what congress has authrorized, skates well into the world of idiocy. How about a disciplined adherence to PAYGO! What a concept, eh?

“United States federal government shutdown of 1995 and 1996
From Wikipedia,

The United States federal government shutdown of 1995 and 1996 was the result of conflicts between Democratic President Bill Clinton and the Congress over funding for Medicare, education, the environment, and public health in the 1996 federal budget. The government shut down after Clinton vetoed the spending bill the Republican Party-controlled Congress sent him. The federal government of the United States put non-essential government workers on furlough and suspended non-essential services from November 14 through November 19, 1995 and from December 16, 1995 to January 6, 1996, for a total of 28 days.”

Andy is right, BUT: The media will play it as the fault of the rotten republican dominated house.But Boehner may not have the votes. He never does when the chips are down. No more debt ceiling raises! Period! We must cut, not expand governmental spending.Obama is a dictator. We must get him out of there ASAP.
There is no way to know what insane, terrible thing Obama would do in response to a shutdown.But it could result in some sort of implosion that would blow him out of office.
Zeke’s point ignores that Obama is the one pushing for more and more spending. He wants to destroy our economy so his moslem brothers can take over and enslave us to their criminal sharia practices. Its them or us, guys! You choose.

“Zeke’s point ignores that Obama is the one pushing for more and more spending.”

And I would respectfully suggest that, you’re ignoring the fact that the Executive Branch and President CANNOT have nor spend a penny of money that is not appropriated by congress — NOR, can the Executive Branch or President authorize the borrowing of money — ONLY the congress can do that.

In fact, the presisdent has NO access to any funds approriated by congress for the enactment of any legislation for which any payments are required. All congressional approval direct fund to ONLY the Treasury Depart and the Secretary of the Treasury who has the sole repsonibility of paying the bills from taxes and other revenue sources collected by the IRS.

The President can ask all day and night for appropriates from congress and can only get them if congress so desires. That said there are certain legislature enactments that require mandatory payments such as decreed non discreationary spending.

If the Republicans are going to try this route of squaring off and facing down the Democrats, they need to specify exactly which parts of government are to remain in operation and which parts are to be completely shut down. Do not leave that narrative exclusively to Obama. Obama may take it upon himself to make those choices unilaterally. However, once the Republicans make a legislatively sound move to choose those parts of government that do not effect most people, when Obama does it the Republicans can point to the disparity of choices. Then it becomes easy to portray Obama’s moves as mean, vindictive and putting his political priorities ahead of the nation.

Rep Cotton is onto the right plan. Hopefully there are enough Reps in Congress to stand with him. I will repeat the idea that they should:

-pass responsible appropriations bills.
-refuse to pass continuing resolutions to fund those expenses contained in the
appropriation bills until the Senate acts and a bill is passed and signed by
the president.
-use limiting language (no funds hereby appropriated may be used to….) in any
continuing resolutions/ bills passed
-stand on those limits/ bills until the next election.

Yes, the MSM/Demo-crats/administration would try to crucify them, they’ll do that anyhow. Next election’s in 2014.

Shut the whole damn thing down and leave it shut down until the budget is balanced. I worked at a high level for the Feds for a decade and saw them waste more money than I could count. The Federal Government could be cut by more than 50% and the country wouldn’t lose a thing. The Republicans need to tell people straight that if we don’t cut the spending back to where we have a surplus for repaying at least a bit of the debt, we’re going to destroy our currency and leave everyone holding dollars with nothing. The Republicans must do this because you can certainly know that this Administration won’t. I’ve never seen anything like the dislike for truth brazenly shown by the Bama gang.

Agreed, Zeke. Ultimately spending must issue from the House. Except, when we finally do really audit the fed it will be known that Obama’s fed has poured trillions of unauthorized dollars into foreign hands. All that takes is a few taps on a computer. He is the biggest thief in world history. And we get to pay for it. If we fail to disenfranchise the young and females we will never get rid of him and his kind.

The MSM has its anti-GOP stories ready to go, ready to tar the Republicans with the blame for all the people being devastated by the horrendous, unforgivable shutdown. The Clinton-era shutdown was a PR nightmare for the GOP, and they caved. Of course, caving is what Republicans do. And, as said today by Boortz, the leader of the Republican Party IS Barack Obama.